desire on his part to use the powers of the Act to the oppression
of any individual or to insist upon the adoption of such arbitrary
and stringent measures as shall drive wealthy manufacturers from the
district. "All that is necessary to be insisted upon is that the
business be so conducted that the health and comfort of the inhabitants
shall not be injured."
But whether it was from the unwillingness of the local authorities to
prosecute, or the difficulties of enforcing the law, the nuisances
continued to the great detriment of the health of the people.
And over and above this combination of nuisances, there was the
abominable smell from the river. That still was an evil.
"Rotherhithe," wrote the Medical Officer of Health, in July, 1858, "in
common with all other metropolitan riverside parishes, has suffered
considerable inconvenience during the last month from the stenches
arising from the filthy state of the Thames water. Perhaps in the
annals of mankind such a thing was never before known, as that the
whole stream of a large river for a distance of seven or eight miles
should be in a state of putrid fermentation. The cause is the hot
weather acting upon the ninety millions of gallons of sewage which
discharge themselves daily into the Thames. And by sewage must be
understood not merely house and land drainage, but also drainage
from bone-boilers, soap-boilers, chemical works, breweries, and gas
factories--the last the most filthy of all.... It is quite impossible
to calculate the consequences of such a moving mass of decomposition as
the river at present offers to our senses."
As one sums up all these disastrous influences, or rather, these
evil powers, unceasing in their work, by night and by day--in the
overcrowded dwelling and the street--with their victims unable to
escape, one realises somewhat the conditions under which great masses
of the people of London were living.
The result was a fearful mortality--an awful waste of human life.
"Death," wrote one of the Medical Officers of Health, "finds easy
victims in filthy habits, overcrowded rooms, impure air, and
insufficient and ineffective water supply."
The consequences were inevitable.
"Wherever there are crowded apartments, imperfect or no drainage,
offensive cesspools, dung-heaps resting against houses or close to
inhabited rooms--wherever ventilation is impeded by the narrowness of
courts and alleys, and wherever the inhabitants living under these
unfavourable circumstances lose their self-respect, pay no regard to
personal cleanliness, and consider a state of filth and offensiveness
as their natural lot--there we find zymotic diseases in full force and
frequency. Those attacked do not simply recover or die. I shall not be
exaggerating when I say that all recovering from these complaints are
permanently injured."[66]
It is impossible to apportion the respective shares which these various
causes of insanitation had in bringing about these dire results, but
overcrowding was undoubtedly one of the principal. As to its disastrous
effects the Medical Officers of Health were of one opinion. There was
no single exception to the strong-voiced insistence upon this fact.
"The main cause," wrote the Medical Officer of Health for the Strand
(1856), "to which we must attribute the high mortality is the close
packing and overcrowding which exists throughout the district....
Overcrowding and disease mutually act and react upon each other.
"There is one circumstance of general prevalence throughout the
district which, so to speak, almost paralyses these efforts of sanitary
improvement--overcrowding--the overcrowding of parts of it with courts
and alleys, the overcrowding of these courts and alleys with houses,
the overcrowding of these houses with human beings" (1859).
"The overcrowding of dwellings," wrote another,[67] "is one of the most
frequent sources of sickness and decay at all ages."
"Perhaps," wrote a third,[68] "there is no single influence to which a
human being is exposed more prejudicial to his health than overcrowding
in rooms the air of which cannot be perpetually and rapidly changed."
"No axiom," wrote another,[69] "can be more positive than the
connection of epidemic diseases with defects of drainage and
ventilation ... the overcrowded localities being especially scourged by
disease."
The consequences were not confined to epidemic disease; other fatal
diseases were begotten by it.
"All medical writers," wrote the Medical Officer of Health for St.
James' (1858), "are agreed that impure air from want of ventilation is
the most potent of all causes of consumption."
Not merely directly did overcrowding bring about fatal results.
Indirectly it also led thither. It was recognised as a cause of
intemperance and of the evils, moral as well as physical, which ensued
from intemperance.
"Men whose nervous systems became depressed, and the tone of their
system generally lowered, became the subjects of a continued craving
for stimulants."[70]
Dr. Simon, Medical Officer of the General Board of Health, wrote:--
"In an atmosphere which forbids the breath to be drawn freely, which
maintains habitual ill-health and depresses all the natural spring
and buoyancy of life, who can wonder that frequent recourse is had to
stimulants?"
The evils were disastrous enough for the adult population, but they
fell with more dire effect upon infants and young children.
"Conditions more or less injurious to health gradually impair the
matured energies and slowly undermine the fully developed constitution
of the adult; but the self-same conditions, exerting their baneful
influence on the infant or young child, nip the tender plant in the bud
and speedily destroy its young life."[71]
Throughout the whole of the metropolis the infantile mortality--that
is, of children under five years of age--was very great: Almost without
exception it was close upon, or over, 50 per cent. of all the deaths in
the various parishes or districts.
In Clerkenwell the infantile mortality, which was "nearly one-half of
all the deaths," was characterised as "enormous"; but in Shoreditch it
was actually one-half, being 50 per cent. (1858); in Bethnal Green it
was over one-half, being 52 per cent. (1858); in St. George-in-the-East
it was 53-1/2 per cent.--or, to put it otherwise, of 1,351 deaths in
the year, 720 were of children under five. In Poplar it was more than
half. In Islington, in 1857, nearly half. In St. Saviour, Southwark, 50
per cent. in 1860-1, "a waste of life which appears almost incredible."
In Limehouse (in 1857) of 1,403 deaths 690 were under five.
The Medical Officer of Health wrote:--
"It is when such wretched offspring, ill-nourished, ill-clothed, and in
every way neglected, become exposed to the depressing influences of an
impure atmosphere that they sicken, and such children when they sicken
they die.... When the habitation of such children is an overcrowded,
dilapidated tenement in some close, ill-ventilated court or alley,
furnished with an undrained closet, surrounded by untrapped drains, and
festering heaps of filth, we find ourselves astonished, not that so
many die, but that so many survive."
In some special places the mortality was still higher. Thus the Medical
Officer of Health for Kensington reports in 1856:--
"In some places the mortality among infants under five years of age was
at the enormous rate of 61·3 per cent. of the total deaths.
"One of the most deplorable spots, not only in Kensington, but in the
whole metropolis, is the Potteries at Nottingdale. It occupies about
8 or 9 acres, and contains about 1,000 inhabitants ... the general
death-rate varies from 40-60 per 1,000 per annum. Of these deaths, the
very large proportion of 87·5 per cent. are under five years of age."
The Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel (in 1858), after
reporting that the total mortality under five years in the Whitechapel
district is about 56 per cent., wrote:--
"How to overcome this frightful and apparently increasing amount
of mortality of the young is a problem well worthy the attentive
consideration of every citizen. The time may be far distant before this
problem is solved; nevertheless it is my duty to chronicle facts, and
although I may not be able to suggest a remedy to meet this evil, still
the knowledge that so large an amount of infant mortality does exist
in our district--I may say, at our very doors--will perhaps rouse the
attention of the philanthropist, the man of science, and the man of
leisure, to investigate its cause, and endeavour to mitigate it."
Once more it must be called to mind that this mortality was
not the whole of the evil, for it was indicative of widespread
infantile sickness and disease among those who escaped the death
penalty--sickness and disease impairing the health and strength of
thousands upon thousands of the juvenile population.
The facts set forth by many of the Medical Officers of Health must
have enlightened many of the new local authorities as to the nature
and extent of the work which it had now become their duty to perform,
and the grave problems for which they were expected to find the best
solution.
The earlier annual reports of many of the Vestries and District Boards
were poverty-stricken in the extreme, and were mostly confined to bald
and uninforming tables of receipts and expenditure, which practically
threw but little light upon the condition of their parishes.
The Vestry of St. Mary, Newington, evidently anxious to prevent
disappointment as to immediate results from its action, stated that:--
"In consequence of the previous want of adequate sanitary powers in
the local authorities of this and other suburban parishes, so great an
extent of sanitary improvement was required when the Vestry came into
operation, that it was impossible the whole could be dealt with at
once, at the same time acting with consideration for those who have to
bear the effects of many years' neglect of those sanitary duties which
are now found to be so essential."
Lambeth Vestry expressed its desire to discover--
"In what manner a prompt and beneficial execution of the provisions of
the Act can be secured without creating any serious increase in local
taxation."
One of the Vestries, indeed, gave the quaint explanation that one
of the things which somewhat retarded sanitary improvement was "the
novelty of applying compulsory powers to landlords."
The desirability of securing parks and places of recreation for the
people was one of the matters which first appealed to some of the
Vestries and District Boards, and memorials were addressed to the
Metropolitan Board urging the importance of their putting in force the
powers conferred on them for the purchase of land for such purposes.
Others directed their attention to the promotion in a small way of
improvements in their parishes by widening streets and roads, and
preserving open spaces--towards which, in some cases, they received a
contribution from the central authority.
A good deal of paving was done, and better measures taken for
scavenging the streets and courts, and for the removal of refuse and
dirt of all sorts.
To local sewerage, as distinct from main sewerage, they also gave
attention, and in 1856 designs for 45 miles of new sewers were sent
in to the Metropolitan Board for approval, and £34,700 borrowed for
the purpose; and in the following year for 46 miles of new sewers, and
loans for £109,000.
A fair amount of drainage work was also carried out--thousands of
cesspools were filled in and drains made. Also a certain amount of
inspection, with the disclosure of an enormous amount of insanitation.
Thus, in the Strand District in 1856--where 813 houses were
inspected--in 774, or 91 per cent. of these, works had to be done
to remedy sanitary defects. In the following year 1,760 houses were
inspected, and in 1,102 sanitary defects were found. In Poplar, of
1,299 houses which were visited, 795 required sanitary improvement.
In Paddington 2,201 houses were inspected; in over 1,600 works had
to be executed to put them in sanitary order; figures which showed
that, roughly speaking, two out of every three houses were sanitarily
defective.
"The last year," wrote the Medical Officer of Health for Hackney
(1857)--where 1,518 houses had been connected with the sewers--"has
been a year of drainage."
Parliament having enacted that the "owner" was responsible for the
state of his property, this work had to be done at the expense of the
owners; but how many decades had passed in which "owners" had spent
nothing on the property, and had been receiving large rents; and how
many cases of sickness and death had occurred in their houses, the
result of the insanitary condition in which they had been allowed to
fall, and in which they were allowed to continue.
In Holborn such works cost the owners about £3,400 in 1857, and in
Lambeth about £10,700.
But the work thus chronicled touched little more than the fringe
of the matter. Most of the local authorities had, out of a spirit
of economy, or for some other reason, appointed only one Inspector
of Nuisances; yet in nearly every one of their parishes there were
thousands of houses--in Greenwich 11,000, in St. Marylebone 16,000, in
Lambeth 22,000--and years would have had to elapse before the solitary
inspector could have completed even one round of inspection and got the
houses he inspected put in order; whilst the others would inevitably
have been existing in, or falling into, a state of insanitation. For
years, therefore, the most vile disease-begetting nuisances might not
merely exist throughout the parish, but work endless evil without any
interference, as indeed they did.
Some of the Vestries put forward their economy as a claim for praise.
Thus, the Wandsworth Board said that "a due and careful regard to
economy had characterised all their proceedings," and the Vestry of St.
Mary Newington said, in 1860, that it had carried out its operations
out of current income and had incurred no debt.
The Medical Officers of Health held their offices at the pleasure of
the Vestries, and, therefore, if they valued their position, had to be
cautious in their criticisms of the management of the affairs of the
parishes.
But their reports convey that the work which ought to have been done
was not being done as rapidly as they wished.
"I wish I could induce the Vestry to insist more upon having the poorer
dwellings cleansed and lime-whited." And again, "The Vestry has the
power to restrict the operation of underground rooms, yet it has not
moved in this important matter."[72]
The Medical Officer of Health for St. Giles' (1857) referred to the--
"Indisposition of the Board to do works and charge the owners"; and,
referring to a special case, he wrote, "It becomes your duty to do
something to prevent the production of disease among the neighbours."
The Medical Officer of Health for St. Pancras wrote in 1856-7:--
"In many houses the overcrowding is very great. There is a clause
under the Nuisances Removal Act by which the Vestry is called on to
take proceedings before a magistrate to abate overcrowding, if it is
certified to be such as to endanger health. No prosecutions have been
taken under this clause."
And again in 1859:--
"Very little has been done in this parish to abate
over-crowding--extreme cases have been proceeded against. No systematic
efforts have been made in this direction."
And the Medical Officer of Health for Hampstead wrote (1856):--
"Nothing short of constant vigilance and inspection can keep the
dwellings and premises of the people in a tolerably healthy state. I
am not sure that your Board is blameless in some of these respects--an
amiable, though weak, reluctance to act severely to any."
And in 1857 he pleaded for the appointment of an Inspector of
Nuisances, which, however, he did not get.
The local authorities had their difficulties in dealing with many of
these matters, even when they were disposed or anxious to do so, owing
to--
"The imperfection of the powers conferred on them by the legislature,
and to the great and stubborn apathy of a poor population."
And the Medical Officer of Health for St. James' (1858) attributed
blame to the public generally:--
"One of the greatest barriers to the practical efficiency of sanitary
arrangements is the ignorance and carelessness of the public. It is
frequently seen that where infectious illness occurs, little or no
attention is paid to its infective character, and an unscrupulous
intercourse is carried on between the members of infected families, not
only amongst themselves, but amongst their neighbours, and thus these
diseases are propagated in spite of every warning and precaution."
"I regret," wrote the Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel, "that
the powers of your Board are not at present sufficient to compel the
owners of small house property to provide an adequate supply of water
for their tenants."
The Medical Officer of Health for Westminster wrote:--
"Few of the objects of sanitary improvement can be fairly attained
without intrenching upon private interests to an extent which would
appear harsh and oppressive. One great obstacle consists in the habits
of a great portion of the poor--generally deficient in cleanliness or
order; they consider any endeavour to improve their dwelling as an
interference, and throw every obstacle in the way. On the other hand, a
large number are most grateful for what has been effected."
But in many matters the local authorities would not take action.
In only four parishes or districts in London had public baths and
wash-houses been established under the Act of 1846, though where they
were in existence "the benefits were immense by promoting habits of
cleanliness."
In Poplar in 1858-9 nearly 40,000 men, and 3,000 women, and 400
children availed themselves of the baths.
In St. Pancras (1856-7) the laundry department, erected by the "Society
for Establishing Public Baths and Wash-houses," was of great value in
affording the poor housewife an opportunity of washing and drying her
linen away from her one room, in which the family had to live night and
day.
"I have frequently seen a small room of this kind with from four to
eight or even ten inmates rendered doubly unhealthy by these laundry
operations, which produce a damp and almost malarious atmosphere."
The Medical Officer of Health for Lambeth had pleaded for such an
establishment in his district, but "the idea of erecting them seems
quite abandoned by the Vestry."
"I know nothing more objectionable in a sanitary point of view than
the washing of foul clothes in the dwellings of the poor, and still
worse the drying of them in courts and rooms already deficient of free
circulation of air and light."
Nothing, however, was done. But inaction far greater in gravity and
infinitely more reprehensible was that relating to the housing of the
people. The Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel drew attention,
in his report of 1857, to their power in this respect:--
"Docks, railways, warehouses, &c., &c., must be constructed for the
increase of the trade of this great metropolis, but our construction
of them ought not to prevent us from providing better habitations for
the working classes whose labours effect these improvements; more
especially as it is in the power of parishes by virtue of an Act of
Parliament to encourage the establishment of lodging-houses for the
labouring classes."[73] Not one single Vestry or District Board ever
attempted to deal with the evils of bad housing and overcrowding by
putting into operation the provisions of this Act.
The occasional statement in the report of a Medical Officer of Health
as to what was actually done in his parish, by showing what might have
been done in any other one, brings into strong relief the incapacity or
deliberate inaction of the local authorities of other parishes. Thus,
in some parishes the Medical Officers of Health endeavoured to effect
some diminution of overcrowding--for instance, the Medical Officer of
Health for Islington reported that--
"In several instances the owners of dwelling-houses had been summoned
for permitting the overcrowding of their houses; and the magistrate had
fined the offenders."
And the Medical Officer of Health for Holborn in the same year wrote:--
"Your Board has already done much to ameliorate the condition of this
class of society (the poor and overcrowded) by compelling the owners
to cleanse, drain, and ventilate their dwellings; to close cellars, to
provide proper water supply, sanitary accommodation, and in many cases
had abated overcrowding."
But few of the Vestries followed, or attempted to follow, these
examples, and in many of the most vital matters a deliberate inactivity
was the prevailing characteristic of the Vestries and District Boards.
"In several Vestries resolutions were actually moved with the view of
averting the construction of sewers. It was thought by many persons of
influence to be better to live in the midst of overflowing cesspools
than to add to the defilement of the Thames."[74]
The Medical Officers of Health did not confine themselves to merely
reporting what was annually done to ameliorate the existing state of
affairs.
As was their duty, they made numerous and frequent suggestions to their
authorities as to what it was best to do. And some of them, going
further than this, sometimes endeavoured to inspire the members of the
Vestries and District Boards with a sense of the gravity of their work,
and with lofty views of their duty. Occasionally, even, they did not
hesitate to censure their employers for inaction or lethargy.
The Medical Officer of Health for the Strand wrote (1856):--
"To pave streets, and to water roads, to drain houses or even to
construct sewers, however necessary these works may be, are among the
least important of the duties which devolve upon you. But to improve
the social condition of the poorer classes, to check the spread of
disease, and to prolong the term of human life, while they are works of
a high and ennobling character, are yet duties involving the gravest
responsibility. Should less care be bestowed upon our fellow creatures
than is daily afforded the lower animals? At the present moment the
condition of many of the working classes is degraded in the extreme."
The Medical Officer of Health for St. Saviour, Southwark, wrote
(1856):--
"In all our efforts at sanitary improvement we are chiefly dealing with
persons who in most instances have not the power of helping themselves,
and who until of late have had no source to which they might apply for
aid in rendering their dwellings clean and wholesome."
The Medical Officer of Health in St. Pancras wrote:--
"All who have made themselves acquainted with the condition of many
of the poor of London will agree with me when I say that before their
moral or religious state is likely to be remedied, their physical
condition must be improved, and their houses made more comfortable. On
you devolves, to a great extent, the solemn responsibility for carrying
out the preparatory work."
The Medical Officer of Health for St. Martin-in-the-Fields wrote to his
Vestry in 1858: "To permit such grievous evils as are to be seen in the
worst localities of this great city is a contradiction to the teaching
of Christianity ... such outrages on humanity as many of the abodes of
the poor are permitted to remain.
"It is unholy, it is unchristian, that people should herd together in
such dens; and so long as such dwellings are allowed to be occupied our
assumed religion must be a pretence and a sham...."
And thus, the Medical Officer of Health for Bethnal Green:--
"To open out avenues through our cul-de-sac courts, to promote the
sanitary condition of every house, to arrest by thorough drainage and
removal of refuse the elimination of aerial poison, are the great
duties that we have day by day to do. Though the task before us be
great, the objects in view are immeasurably greater--to exalt the
standard of life, to economise rates, and above all to decrease the sum
of misery, disease, and death.... To supply the arm strong to labour,
to substitute productive for unproductive citizens, to decrease the
death-roll of the young, and to protract life beyond the present span,
these are the tasks that sanitary science imposes on us."
The Medical Officer of Health for Clerkenwell pointed out that--
"The poorer classes have not the means of remedying the defective
sanitary conditions under which they are living. But the Vestry has
this power."
The Medical Officer of Health for St. Pancras made a calculation that
nearly 1,200 deaths in the parish in 1858 were due to causes which
might have been prevented by sanitary improvements. "To every death we
may safely assume more than thirty cases of illness. This gives us
36,000 cases of preventable disease in the year."
"You will see," wrote the Medical Officer of Health for St. James'
(1856), "that by diminishing death and disease, you are diminishing
poverty and want.... The sanitary question lies at the root of all
others. It is a national one and a religious one. It is true that in
the exercise of your powers you will often be met by the assertion of
the rights of property, but the right of life stands before the right
of property, and it is this recognition of the sacredness of human life
that lies at the foundation of sanitary legislation."
The Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel wrote:--
"I have in this report, as in duty bound, spoken plainly; if in the
opinion of some members of the Board too plainly, my apology is--the
deep sense I entertain of the importance of sanitary progress; for upon
the success that shall attend the labours of those engaged in this
most sacred cause depends the improvement of the social, moral, and
intellectual condition of the people."
And the Medical Officer of Health for St. Giles' made this pathetic
appeal for action:--
"While you are listening to the remainder of this report, I trust you
will hold in your mind how many lives are being sacrificed every month
to deficiencies in sanitary arrangements."
It is only here and there in the earlier reports of the Medical
Officers of Health that specific mention is made of intemperance, but
every reference to the subject showed how largely "drink" affected
the sanitary condition of the people and intensified and complicated
the evil conditions in which the people were placed, and rendered any
amelioration, physical, moral, or religious, infinitely more difficult.
It was becoming more and more generally recognised that a very large
proportion of the deaths and of disease were preventable.
"Any skilled eye glancing over the mortality tables will observe that a
considerable number of deaths might have been prevented."
"We are now to a great extent aware," wrote the Medical Officer of
Health for St. Saviour's (1856), "of the physical conditions on which
the lives of individuals and communities depend."
The Medical Officer of Health for Fulham wrote in 1857:--
"Sanitary science and experience have full clearly proved to us how
great an extent the prevention of disease and its extension rests with
us."
But against contagion and infection no precautions whatever were taken,
and so disease was sown broadcast throughout the community, and death
followed.
As to suggested remedies and action there was a chorus of absolute
unanimity upon some points:--
"The principal cause of the extent of zymotic disease," wrote the
Medical Officer of Health for Mile-End-Old-Town, in 1859, "is the
defective state of the habitations of the poorer classes. The remedy
for the evil is only to be secured by a systematic house visitation.
"... Without a general house inspection it is impossible to secure the
proper entry to and use of the expensive sewers which have been and are
being constructed.
"Having done so much for the streets, pavements, and drains, the
improvements will lose half their salutary effect if the interior of
the dwellings are not placed in a corresponding condition of wholesome
cleanliness."
"It is," wrote the Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel, "to the
interior of the houses that our attention must be directed, for it is
here that the source of disease is usually found.... An habitual and
detailed inspection of the houses occupied by the poorer classes is
therefore essential."
A house-to-house visitation was, indeed, the first essential. By no
other means could the actual condition of the abodes of the people
be ascertained, and the breeding places of disease be discovered,
cleared out, and rendered innocuous. And as there was a never ceasing
tendency on the part of the poorer classes to sink into a condition
of uncleanliness, and on the part of their abodes to fall into
dilapidation, or, as it was expressed, "a pertinacity for dirt," so
was constant inspection and supervision of vital necessity for the
maintenance of any improvements made.
"There are," wrote the Medical Officer of Health for St. Pancras
(1858), "many parts of the parish densely crowded. Some of the
people have become so used to filth, they appear to prefer it to
cleanliness; at any rate, they have not the energy to get rid of it and
improve their condition. Such houses--perfect hotbeds of infectious
diseases--ought to be visited two or three times a year...."
The Medical Officers of Health had one valuable object lesson before
them in the common lodging-houses, which, regulated and inspected by
the police under the Acts passed by Parliament, had shown that even
the very worst conditions of life could be ameliorated, and that the
very lowest and most miserable classes of society were not beyond
improvement.
"The chief points which are regulated by the authorities (the Police)
are cleanliness, drainage and water supply, the separation of the
sexes, and the prevention of overcrowding. The testimony of all who
are acquainted with the dwellings of the poor is concurrent as to the
immense sanitary advantages gained by the provisions of the Common
Lodging Houses Act, and the results had been to improve in a marked
degree the health, habits, and morals of the persons using these
places."[75]
"The cleanliness, comfort, and ventilation of the licensed rooms in
common lodging-houses offer a very marked contrast to those which are
unlicensed."[76]
To more than one of these officers the idea occurred that similar
benefits would follow if tenement houses were similarly inspected.
"I believe considerable good might be accomplished by a legislative
enactment placing every house let out in weekly tenements to more
than one family under similar regulations to those affecting common
lodging-houses, and rendering landlords liable for permitting
overcrowding to exist upon their property."
The success of the common lodging-houses was due to the enforcement
upon the owner of the first essentials of sanitation in the house he
let to occupants, and to the regular "inspection" of his house to
secure that those essentials were maintained in a state of efficiency.
But it was just these two things that were most held in abhorrence by
the majority of tenement-house owners in London.
The Medical Officer of Health for the Strand, after describing the
overcrowding of tenement-houses, wrote (1858):--
"No remedy it is feared will be found until all houses of the class
alluded to, the rooms of which are let out as separate tenancies,
shall be compulsorily _registered_ under the supervision of the Local
Authority of the District in which they are situate, as fit for the
accommodation of a certain number of persons, and no more."
"This suggestion will doubtless excite the sneers of the ignorant, the
fears of the weak, and the ridicule of the selfish, coupled with the
usual expressions about interference with the liberty of the subject;
but the upright and unprejudiced will not fail to perceive that it is
the liberty and the health of the working classes, forming, as they do,
so large a proportion of the mass of the people which it is sought to
protect from the tyrannical and grasping covetousness of an avaricious
few who care little whether the health of the working man be destroyed,
or whether his children be reared up in such a way that disease and
vice must almost necessarily result, provided they succeed in obtaining
for themselves an additional percentage upon their investment."
And the following year he again forcibly adverted to the subject.
"When it is borne in mind that in some of the small courts in this
District there are packed together as many persons as almost equal
in number the soldiers congregated in a commodious barracks, is the
high death-rate a matter of surprise? But what can be done? The
authorities, general or local, cannot surely be expected to provide
suitable dwellings for the people! Undoubtedly they cannot; but it is
incumbent upon these authorities, in the interest of the well-being of
all classes of the community, to place a prohibitive limit in regard
of overcrowding upon the class of houses the rooms of which are let
out as separate tenements, which would, without hardship upon their
occupants, speedily produce the desired effect. Such a condition,
practically speaking, already exists in regard of most of the Public
Institutions of this country in which large numbers of persons reside;
such a condition is enacted by law in regard of our emigrant ships:
such a condition is enforced by Act of Parliament in regard of Common
Lodging Houses: and in all these instances the principle works well. Is
it reasonable, then, that in relation to the influence of over-crowding
upon health and life, less care should be taken of the people who
occupy the densely populated districts of our great towns and cities
than is already provided by law for the inmates of our Common Lodging
Houses, or for the paupers admitted into our Workhouses, or for the
emigrants who leave our shores? Surely the injustice cannot but be
apparent."
Other suggestions were also made.
The Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel wrote (1859):--
"If the public is to enjoy health, and a freedom from the ravages of
epidemic disease, a stop must be put to the present scheme of erecting
houses in crowded situations; for although the rights of property are
to be respected, yet, in my opinion, such rights are of secondary
consideration when compared with the public health and the increased
burdens which must be borne by the ratepayers to support those whose
sickness is occasioned by the unhealthiness of the localities where
they reside."
Several urged the vigorous enforcement of the existing law. To the
Vestry of Lambeth the Medical Officer of Health wrote in his report in
1856:--
"You must proceed actively against those who have raised the value of
their possessions by ignoring the value of human life, who wilfully
multiply disease by neglect of their pestiferous property."
The Medical Officer of Health for Hackney wrote (1858):--
"I feel assured that it cannot be too widely known that individuals
will not be allowed to deal with their property in such a manner as to
cause injury to the public health. For although individual liberty has
long been the boast of England, yet there is a point beyond which it
cannot be tolerated with safety; and private good should always be made
to give way to the public welfare."
The greater the light thrown upon the sanitary condition of the people
of London, the clearer became the fact that the principal blame
therefor rested upon the house-owner, lessee, or middleman, or as
Parliament defined him, "the owner."
Many of the Medical Officers of Health were outspoken and unhesitating
in their opinion as to the responsibility of the house-owner for the
existing condition of the dwellings of the people.
"The enemies of the poorer classes," wrote the Medical Officer of
Health for Clerkenwell, "are the landlords, who know well that proper
lodgings for the really poor do not exist. They know also that if they
buy at a cheap rate any old premises not fit for a pig-sty and let them
cheaply they will be sure to find tenants."
If it was not the real owner of the house, it was the middleman or
person or persons between the owner and the tenant. Rents were high in
most parts of London where there was urgent demand for accommodation,
and "the yearly rental is unfortunately in many cases still further
increased by the 'middleman system'; many of the houses being rented by
an individual who sub-lets them in separate rooms as weekly tenancies,
and this at an increase of 20 per cent. (Strand 1856):--
"And thus it is that health and life are daily sacrificed at the shrine
of gain."
What sort of property some of them held, and the condition in which
they allowed it to remain, whilst they drew their "gain" from it,
is graphically illustrated by the Medical Officer of Health in St.
Olave's, Southwark (1856).
He thus described the houses in three small courts:--
"The whole of these houses are held by one person, and it is impossible
to imagine any state much worse than the condition of everything
connected with their drainage, &c.
"Here, within a small area, are thirty-nine houses, all having open
foul privies, cesspools all filled, and many overflowing. The yards
are foul, dirty, damp, and wretchedly paved with small, loose, broken
bricks--most of them are daily filled with the overflowing of the
drains and cesspools, the drains are all untrapped, and scarcely a
house has a proper receptacle for water; they are mostly broken,
dilapidated, uncovered tubs, placed close to the cesspools, so as to
absorb the foul gases emanating from them. The effluvium on entering
any of these places is abominable, and greatly complained of....
"These three courts are thickly inhabited."
In the following month he reported nineteen houses in two streets very
much the same as above. In the next month twenty more--in the month
after, thirty more. He might almost have had the general description
printed, with blanks for filling up the number of such houses and where
situated.
If it had not been for the new Acts passed in 1855, this condition of
things would doubtless have continued indefinitely. That condition had
been reached under absence of inspection, or regulation, and freedom on
the part of the owner to do as he liked; and had no laws been enacted
to terminate it, no change would ever have been effected.
And when efforts were made by the local authorities to remedy similar
places, strong opposition was met with. Thus in Hackney (1856-7):--
"1839 nuisances have been rooted out. In very many cases prosecutions
have been ordered by the Board. They were almost invariably opposed by
the offenders, generally people of substance, with the advantage of
able legal aid, in the most pertinacious and resolute manner...."
The novelty of enforcing upon the owners the improvements deemed
necessary naturally raised in the minds of some of the Medical Officers
of Health the question as to the justice of such a proceeding. Those
who discussed it were clear upon the point.
Thus the Medical Officer of Health for Shoreditch (1856-7) wrote:--
"The question of putting houses into a condition fit for habitation
has two bearings. It is, _first_, a question between the landlords and
the tenants, whose health is sacrificed by neglect. It is, in the next
place, a question between the landlords and the ratepayers.
"If the landlords neglect to make the necessary outlay in improving
their property, the expense of maintaining that property in its
unhealthy condition is thrown upon the ratepayers, for these have to
bear the burden of supporting the sick and the destitute."
And the Medical Officer of Health for Clerkenwell:--
"At present the poor rates are raised by the parish having to pay the
expenses of afflicted poor persons, whose misery has in most instances
arisen from defective sanitary arrangements, the remedying of which
ought to have been effected at the expense of the landlords, who derive
their substance from the miseries of the poor."
And the Medical Officer of Health for St. George's, Hanover Square:--
"I am compelled to say that the number of dingy and dilapidated houses
is a proof either that the owners of house property do not exercise
sufficient control over their tenants, or that they themselves are
grievously neglectful of their duties to their tenants and to society
at large. The health of the Parish should not be allowed to suffer
through the default of either landlord or tenant.... Here there need be
no scruple about interference with private property.
"No man is allowed to sell poisonous food, and none should be allowed
to sell poisonous lodgings, more especially as the effects of poisonous
food are confined to the persons who eat it--the effects of unwholesome
apartments may be diseases that may be spread."
On the equity of compelling the owners to put their houses in order,
there are many insisters.
"It is but right," wrote the Medical Officer of Health for Fulham
(1857), "that those who have hitherto fed their own resources by
impoverishing others, should now in their turn make good the damage."
The Medical Officer of Health for Poplar (1856), wrote:--
"While on the one hand we must not proceed in a reckless manner so to
burden property as to render it entirely unproductive, yet on the other
we cannot allow the labouring man, whose health is the only property
he can call his own, to live in unwholesome places to the destruction
of that capital, by which alone he is enabled to support himself and
family."
And the Medical Officer of Health for Mile-End-Old-Town (1856):--
"... To charge such property (viz., in bad condition and heavily
encumbered) with the costs of thorough repair, would leave the owners
in some instances, I am fully aware, destitute, but life is more
sacred, and possesses higher rights than property, and it cannot be
just to inflict or continue a public injury while endeavouring to spare
and sympathise with the inconvenience of an individual."
That the evil state of the dwellings of the poorer classes entailed a
charge upon the public was also pointed out by the Medical Officer of
Health for Bethnal Green, who, referring to the miserable homes in the
parish, wrote:--
"From the cradle to the grave their inmates are a direct charge upon
our funds."
Happily the law was beginning to be enforced, and beginning to create a
little alarm among some house-owners.
"As landlords are now aware that their property will be visited in
rotation by the Inspector, the necessary alterations and improvements
are frequently effected by them in anticipation."[77]
Others did the necessary work when ordered to do it by the sanitary
authority.
Others, however, not until legal proceedings were taken, and they were
ordered by the magistrate to do it--and even then some would not obey
the magistrate's order, and the work had to be done by the sanitary
authority, and the cost thereof levied from the owner.
One case was recorded by the Medical Officer of Health for St. Giles',
in 1858-9, in which the authority of the law was more strongly
asserted.
"While speaking of the resistance met with in enforcing sanitary
requirements, it may be here mentioned that the extreme step of
imprisoning the owner of a certain house has been had recourse to for
his obstinate refusal to comply with a magistrate's order."
That disease and sickness among the people entailed a great loss and
heavy burden upon the community appears scarcely to have received
any recognition up to this, and yet it was a truth of far-reaching
importance. That individuals suffered was of course clear, but that the
community did was by no means realised.
Several of the Medical Officers of Health promptly discerned how true
it was, and in their earlier reports dwelt upon it, pointing out the
effects, and emphasising their great importance.
"It cannot be too often impressed upon our minds," wrote one, "that
sickness among the poor is the great cause of pressure upon the rates;
and everything that will tend to diminish the number of sick will be so
much saved to the ratepayers."[78]
"The greater the amount of disease," wrote another, "the larger the
proportion of pauperism."
"Of the causes of pauperism, none are so common as disease and death,"
wrote another.
Indeed, a little consideration must have demonstrated its truth.
Difficult as it was for the individual in health to earn a
livelihood--when sickness fell upon him there was the instant and
complete cessation of his wages, and there were expenses incurred by
his sickness. If he recovered, there had been a long disablement from
work, and a heavy loss. If, however, he died, the community suffered
by the loss of his productive labour, and, where the victim was the
breadwinner of a family, his widow and children but too commonly became
a charge upon the rates.
"High mortality in a district," wrote the Medical Officer of Health for
Clerkenwell (1858), "especially among the poor who are the principal
sufferers, does not relate simply to the dead; the living are also
deeply concerned. Every death in a poor family causes an interruption
to the ordinary remunerative labour, and produces expenses which have
to be paid out of scanty wages. Hence the living suffer from want; the
parish funds must be appealed to; families become parentless, and next
comes crime."
The Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel (1858) wrote:--
"In the course of time the public will learn that sickness, with its
concomitant evils, viz., the loss of wages, the calls upon clubs and
friendly societies, the increased amount of charitable contributions,
a heavier poor rate, &c., entails more expense upon the community
than would be required to carry out sanitary improvements in widening
streets, converting the culs-de-sac into thoroughfares, and in erecting
more commodious houses for the poor."
And the Medical Officer of Health for the Strand wrote:--
"Of every death which occurs in this district over and above the
ordinary rate of mortality, the number of _cases of illness in excess_
must be a high multiple. And during every attack of severe illness the
patient, whatever his position in life may be, must be maintained--if
wealthy, at his own expense, if poor, at that of the community at
large. And in the latter case, the community at large must thus suffer
a direct loss. _Health is money_, as much as time is money, and sooner
or later sickness must be paid for out of the common fund...."
And the Medical Officer of Health for Shoreditch (1856) wrote:--
"To communities as well as to individuals there is nothing so
expensive, so fatal to prosperity, as sickness. To a productive and
labouring community, health is the chief estate.... A community is but
a system of individuals--if one portion of that system be disabled by
sickness, every other portion will feel the blow; the whole community
will be taxed to support that part which is rendered incapable of
supporting itself. It is then a plain matter of self-interest, as
well as of solemn obligation, to exercise the most vigilant care in
preserving to the poor their only worldly possession, their health and
capacity for self-support."
Nor did the danger to the great community of London, from the
prevalence of sickness in any particular district, appear to have
received the faintest recognition.
And yet, in the matter of health, and protection from infection, all
classes from the highest to the lowest had equal interest; for disease
commencing or raging in one district is not long in spreading to other
districts.
The Medical Officer of Health for Chelsea (1857-8) wrote:--
"It cannot need any argument to prove that diseases of an epidemic or
infectious nature cannot be arrested in their progress by the imaginary
line drawn around the boundaries of the parish--that the smoke from
the furnaces in Lambeth and Vauxhall must be wafted across the Thames
and influence the health of the inhabitants of Chelsea, if not kept in
check, and that evils of minor importance in Pimlico, on one side, and
Kensington on the other, may be quite as prejudicial to the health of
the neighbours residing on this side of the boundary as to those among
whom they are generated."
That any one locality had a duty to its neighbours, still less to
London as a whole, as well as to the people of its own area, was beyond
the range of the ideas of the vestries and district boards. Indeed, if
their sense of duty did not induce them to look after and safeguard the
people for whose sanitary condition they were immediately responsible,
how could it be expected of them to be influenced by considerations as
to those residing outside their area, and residing many miles away.
And yet, by the very condition of things, this greater responsibility
did exist.
But the great fact that in the vital matter of the public health London
was one great community, the various parts thereof being indissolubly
welded together into one great whole, had not as yet apparently dawned
upon the minds of the newly-created local authorities; nor, indeed,
had Parliament even realised it, for it had left the forty and more
of those authorities full freedom to scatter disease of the deadliest
type from one end of London to the other, and to imperil the lives of
London's inhabitants.
The reports of one of the Medical Officers of Health give such an
exceptionally complete and vivid description of the condition of the
parish to which he had been appointed, and in which he worked, that a
series of extracts from them are given.
The parish was the parish of St. George-the-Martyr in Southwark, on the
south side of the river, just opposite the City; "low-lying and flat,
and about half a foot below Trinity high-water mark," with an area of
282 acres, and a population of about 52,000 persons, and the Medical
Officer of Health was Dr. William Rendle, who speaks of himself as "an
old parish surgeon."
"If a loose drain conducts stenches into a man's house instead of
out of it, if the concentrated filthiness of a gully is blown into a
front door or window, if a house often visited with fever has not been
cleansed or whitewashed for many years, if there is no water but putrid
water filled with disgusting living creatures, and no butt except a
rotten one, not even the most enthusiastic lover of things as they
are can find fault with us if we try to alter these things for the
better....
"Let us picture to ourselves the man of the alley come home from work.
"The house is filthy, the look of it is dingy and repulsive, the air
is close and depressing; he is thirsty: the water-butt, decayed and
lined with disgusting green vegetation, stands open nigh a drain,
and foul liquids which cannot run off are about it, tainting it with
an unwholesome and unpleasant taste; the refuse heap with decaying
vegetable matter is near, and the dilapidated privy and cesspool send
up heavy, poisonous, and depressing gases. Such are the homes, may I
say, of thousands in this parish?"
He contrasts the public-house with that, and says: "The surprise is
not so much that one man here and there reels home drunk and a savage,
as that for every such a one there are not twenty. Gentlemen of the
Vestry who have seen these things can bear me witness that I do not
exaggerate. This is no fancied statement....
"This parish has always been remarkable for its deathly pre-eminence.
Hitherto there has been no sufficient law. After this we shall stand
without excuse....
"... Who is to say, when the question is improvement, as to where
we shall stop? No doubt there is a question of more or less rapid
progress, so as to hurt existing interests as little as may be....
"Our intrusive visits, as some would call them, into filthy and
diseased houses, benevolent as they are, on behalf of those who cannot
always help themselves, have example even in the most remote times and
from the highest authority. The ancient authority was more imperative,
and made it more a matter of conscience. In the ancient Jewish law it
was ordained 'that he that owneth the house shall himself come and tell
the Priest, saying: "It seemeth to me there is, as it were, a plague in
the house."' The Priest was then to command the emptying it, so that
"all in the house be not made unclean." He was then to cause it to be
scraped within and about, and finally he was to pronounce when the
house was clean, and might be again inhabited.
"The Priest was, you perceive, the Medical Officer of Health under
the Jewish law, and this text of Leviticus is the 13th section of the
Diseases Prevention Act....
"From what I see of the parish we cannot without inconveniently close
packing hold many more.[79]
"The growth of our parish is not from births alone; some persons of
course immigrate from other parts of England, but the greater part come
from Ireland, bringing with them disease and poverty....
"I am afraid that the poor of other parishes are forced upon us. We
increase in poverty, and, paradoxical as it looks, the poorer we get
the more we shall have to pay.
"There are now from 6-7,000 cases of illness per year attended by the
poor-law surgeons.
"Our poor work at the waterside, in the city, and at the docks; their
productive labour helps to pay the rates of other parishes, but in
difficulty and sickness they live and lean upon us.
"Now as to _overcrowding:--_
In Lewisham there are 2 persons to an acre.
" Camberwell " 13 " " "
" Rotherhithe " 21 " " "
" All London " 30 " " "
" Newington " 104 " " "
While we have 184 " " "
And in one of the
parts of the parish 244 " " "
"Our parish is now almost completely built over.
"In 1850, out of 1,169 deaths 565 (or one half) were under 5 years.
"In Bermondsey, 506 out of 983.
"Our parish and Bermondsey are quite ahead (of others) in this
unenviable race towards death."
"The contents of our sewers can only be discharged 4 hours each tide--8
hours each day--the remaining 16 hours daily they are reservoirs of
stagnant sewage."
"We are sadly deficient in sewers. At least 100 courts, alleys, and
back streets are entirely without drainage.... Some of our sewers have
remarkably little incline. That in Friar Street, a most important one,
is so level from Bean Street to Suffolk Street that it has a most
curious quality for a sewer, that of flowing either way equally well.
"One very prevalent evil is loose brick drains which let the deadly
gases into houses."
"... We are a most melancholy parish, low in level and low in
circumstances. The lowest and poorest of the human race drop from
higher and richer parishes into our courts and alleys, and the liquid
filth of higher places finds its way down to us. We receive the refuse
as well as the outcomings of more happily situated places."
His report for 1857 continued his description:--
"We lose annually 30 per 1,000--there are only two parishes worse than
we are. Some at least of this mortality is preventable. If we could
keep to the average of all London we should lose 300 less a year; or
even to that of Bethnal Green we should lose 200 less.
"Few people believe we are so bad as we really are, and if we do not
believe we shall not of course try to mend it, but it cannot be denied.
"The rich Londoners pay a low poor-rate. The poor Londoners pay a high
poor-rate. This bears hardly upon us; it stifles us: more and more
packed, more and more impoverished; with very little space between the
poor ratepayer and the pauper, there is more sickness and death.
"Density of population brings you more deaths, more sickness, more
expense.
"The dreadfully vitiated air of our courts and close rooms produces and
fosters consumption."
Commenting on the common lodging-houses, he wrote:--
"The police regulations for order, cleanliness, and prevention of
disease are in the highest degree satisfactory.... The benefits are so
great that the employment of the same regulations in the more crowded
and filthier houses of the poor can only be a question of time. It is
the highest humanity to quicken the progress.
"Vestries have power sufficient for the purpose. The need is so great,
so undoubted by those who have seen the evils with their own eyes, and
the benefit to be obtained so certain, that if the local authorities do
not enforce the improvements, the police will have to do it.
"As to the overcrowding, I have brought many cases before you, each
from illness resulting in difficulty of cure, constantly recurring. 'I
can never get out of that house,' said the district surgeon of one of
them. The eight rooms in this house were always full, the receipts £2
2s. a week, yet it was dirty, neglected, and overcrowded. So the poor
live, and I may say, so they die."
"As to some manufactories, some of them are very bad, and their
pernicious influence spreads widely. I do not think any manufacturer
should be obliged to leave; trades must, of course, be protected;
but one man must not, to save a little expense in his building and
machinery, be allowed to poison a neighbourhood, containing as this
does some 30,000 people.
"There are various ways of making almost all of them bearable."
"In this parish are at least 4,000 houses rated under £10 a year, and
containing 30,000 persons."
1858. _1st Quarter:_--
"Of smallpox and vaccination there are some who neglect this great
precaution, and so not only imperil themselves but others. Here is
the evil, and indeed, I believe, the reason why the disease is not
altogether banished."
"... A case registered as diphtheria occurred and died; it began in one
of the very worst localities and then extended to opener and better
places. Thus it is that modern society neglects the social condition of
its poor, and the poor with a well-ordered revenge bring disease and
death as a consequence."
Referring to some tables he compiled, he said:--
"In this table appear 42 deaths from consumption; it has but recently
become prominent how very preventable a disease this is ... the
principal causes have here been made obvious enough: sleeping closely
in ill-ventilated rooms, overcrowding, and bad ventilation."
"It is now quite established that, with close overcrowded rooms--that
is, by assiduously causing the continued breathing a tainted
atmosphere--you may insure consumption in the most healthy.
"3,500 years ago the Jewish legislator promulgated laws and duties
almost identical with those we are now engaged in carrying out as new
in the nineteenth century--but so it is."
"... There is a great deal of carelessness touching human life, and a
great want of common sense or serious thought in the preserving it.
Much is left to chance. There is either fatalism or stolid indifference
upon the matter pervading highest society, and the poor, driven as they
are from richer districts into poorer neighbourhoods, can scarcely
help themselves; they lose at last all healthy communication with
richer or better neighbours, and all taste for pure air and healthy
pursuits; they pack close, they descend a little, often a great deal,
toward the lower animals, and so live neither for this world nor the
next."
"There are 7,000 houses in this parish. 890 of these have been visited
this year, and in 756 the work ordered has been carried out--sometimes
in a most slovenly manner--an apparent compliance with your orders. In
the poorer districts the most incompetent men are employed to plaster
over, patch over, whitewash, or cover over the evils ordered to be _not
covered but amended_. Still a great amount of good work has been done.
"... Overcrowding is the normal state in our poorer districts. Small
houses of four rooms are usually inhabited by 3 or 4 families, and by
8, 16, or 24 persons, _e.g._, 133 inhabitants in 8 houses ... a filthy
yard generally implies a filthy house and unclean habits" ... "this
parish with its thousands of refuse heaps."
"I know that we are on the right track. May Pole Alley, a cul-de-sac
with its 23 houses and 180 people, was once a nest of infectious
diseases. I attended some 10 cases of typhus there, some of them
malignant enough to destroy life in 48 hours. With great trouble this
court has been cleansed and amended. It is very much more healthy."
1858. _2nd Quarter:_--
"June--an exceedingly hot and dry month. You may judge of the effect of
such temperature upon exposed dung-heaps, wet sloppy yards, and rotten,
filthy, uncovered water-butts; three characteristics of this parish....
"The Surgeon of the District writes thus to the Board of Guardians:
'The smell is very bad from a horse-boiling establishment in Green
Street, which causes a great increase of sickness near that part.' This
of course refers to the bone boiling and other like establishments, of
which there are, in this one small street, three cat gut manufacturers,
one soap boiler, one horse slaughterer, and four bone boilers--all
very offensive trades. I am receiving complaints in all directions as
to this matter. I am inclined to think that this is not altogether just
to the 20,000 inhabitants who live within the effluvia circle of Green
Street."
As to infantile mortality he writes: "I confess I see but little
difference between that sanguinary ancient law that directly destroyed
weakly and deformed children, and that modern indifference that insures
at the very least an equally fatal result" ... "these disturbing truths
involving so much trouble and expense, and giving us painful reminders
of new duties, as well as of old ones neglected."
He complains of having to neglect a great many cases of insanitation
owing to want of staff. "... Of those upon whom orders come to remove
nuisances, &c., a large number are objectors, and not a few positive
obstructors...."
"The items in this last table merit attention, and throw a sad sort of
light upon the condition of the poor of this parish. We have visited 73
unclean and ruinous houses; 118 in which the water was stored in a most
unwholesome manner; 163 in which the drains were defective enough to be
disease producing; 72 in which the w.c.'s were more or less unfit for
use; 110 yards sloppy, not paved, or ill-paved; and 138 in which there
was no sufficient provision for house refuse....
"We are packing more and more closely.
"In the great mass of our poorer habitations the allowance of breathing
room is not more than 200 cubic feet per head--often as low as 120. In
one house reported to me there were 30 in four rooms with only 2,410
cubic feet, or 80 cubic feet per individual. This must, of course, be
premature death to many of them....
"We cannot overlook what is going on: improvements are being effected
elsewhere, the dwellings of the poor are being destroyed, a few
parishes are fast becoming pre-eminently poor, over-crowded, and
filthy. I need not tell you that this parish is one that gets in this
respect steadily worse from the improvement in others.
"The temptation is very great to overcrowd; the poor family, however
large, by crowding into one room, and by even taking a casual lodger
in addition, obtains a sort of home at a cheaper rate, and the owner
gets a much larger revenue out of what I must, I suppose, call human
habitations. The resulting illness and death are considered inevitable,
or are viewed with a stolid indifference."
1858. _3rd Quarter:_--
Of the greatness of the mass of prevalent evils he wrote: "I have
often reported it here, but the very enormity of the evil blunts our
appreciation of it...."
There had been a high mortality in the Quarter. "We are once more, I
believe, the worst parish in London...."
"The back districts of this parish require relief, as much as Ireland
ever did, from a class of middlemen who, with some few most honourable
exceptions, grind out all they can from the most squalid districts, and
carry nothing back in the way of cleanliness or improvement."
He gives a long list of streets and courts and places where disease was
rampant and deadly owing to the insanitary conditions.
"It may perhaps be said that all this is in the order of nature, and
cannot be prevented. My experience of a quarter of a century among
these diseases points quite the other way. Providence does not intend
that reservoirs of stinking putrid matter shall stand so close to the
poor man's door as to infest him at bed and board.... In the Jewish
scriptures the places for the purposes here mentioned are ordered to
be without the camp, as far from the breathing and eating places as
possible; and among us, as you see, when we tolerate such abominations,
He visits us with death. It is the result of the irrevocable laws of
nature often averted by what appear as happy accidents, but at last,
when disregarded, deadly. Gentlemen, you are the trustees for life and
death to a population of well-nigh 30,000 people, who from the force of
circumstances are more or less unable to help themselves...."
"Of course it cannot be expected that we can provide the homes of the
poor with the orderly arrangements and benefits of these Institutions
(Dispensaries, &c.)--that, however, will form no excuse here or
hereafter for not carrying out the improvements we can easily achieve,
and which a wise legislature has given us full authority to do."
"Total deaths in Quarter ended October 2nd, 1858--369, of which 225
were of children under 5 years = 61 per cent!!"
The whole tone of this report was such that he could not possibly
continue as Medical Officer of Health to a then existing Vestry, and he
resigned.
He was succeeded by another very able man, Dr. Henry Bateson, from
whose reports may be continued the description of this parish up to the
census of 1861.
"The onward moral and intellectual progress of the human race depends
far more upon the sanitary state which surrounds it than has ever yet
entered into our imaginations to conceive....
"We have suffered severely from the ravages of smallpox. Smallpox is a
disease over which we have perfect control, and which, were vaccination
thoroughly carried out, might be banished from these dominions."
"... Men whose nervous systems become depressed and the tone of their
system generally lowered, become the subjects of a continued craving
for stimulants."
"... Our wells are but the receptacles of the washings from our
streets, the off-scourings from our manufactories, the permeations from
our cesspools, and the filterings from our graveyards."
1860-1861. After five years' local government:--
"The circumstances are various and complicated, which contribute to
prevent the improvement of the district, and even make the endeavour
seem at times hopeless. No one can know the fertile sources that exist
for producing in the mind this feeling of despair save those engaged
in sanitary labours; or those perchance whose duty it may be to visit
our poorest and lowest localities." ... "It is no light and easy work
to remove the aggregate evils of centuries which, like the coral
reefs of the ocean, have grown up silently and continuously to their
present magnitude.... There are hindrances all around, some of which
are unsurmountable, such as those arising from the imperfections of
the law itself ... there are also vested rights, customs, ignorance,
stupidity, and avarice, all of which have to be dealt with and overcome
if possible."
"Nature never pardons. Obey and it is well; disobey and reap the bitter
consequences."
Referring to some houses "of the worst description, having no yards,
nor even windows behind, so that ventilation was impossible," he
says: "I am sorry to say that there are numbers of similar houses
still standing, and occupied by the most ignorant and degraded of our
population--a class living almost in the neglect of laws human and
divine; and as heedless about the present and the future as the very
heathen themselves...."
"The state and condition of the dwellings of the poorer classes are a
stain upon our civilisation."
"... No one can conceive, nor would they believe, unless eye-witnesses,
the wretched circumstances in which vast numbers of families have to
spend their lives. It is indescribable."
"The daily task of keeping clean their houses and families, once
a pleasure to them as well as a duty, having to be performed amid
overwhelming obstacles on every side, from which no hope of escape
remains to cheer them on, is gradually neglected and ultimately
abandoned, their spirits become torpid and depressed, and this is
necessarily followed by the derangement of the functions of the body.
Finally they become reckless, and this recklessness increases the
evil which gave it birth. There is action and reaction. What marvel
then that, like unto those about them, they float down the ebb tide
towards the dead sea of physical dirt and moral degradation. It has
been truly said by Dr. Southwood Smith, 'The wretchedness being greater
than humanity can bear, annihilates the mental feelings, the faculty
distinctive of the human being.'"
"The heedlessness shown in the building of houses is astonishing.
No care is taken about the nature of the subsoil, the position, the
ventilation, and means of cleanliness. They are run up anywhere and
almost anyhow, and too often become the prolific source of disease."
And he quotes: "No man has a right to erect a nuisance, and the
public has clearly as good a right, as great an interest in enforcing
cleanliness to prevent the outbreak of an epidemic as in requiring
walls to prevent the spread of fire. Yet, where one is destroyed by
fire, how many thousands are there destroyed by disease, the indirect
result of such erections?"
"We are desperately careless about our health, and apparently esteem it
of small value. A great modern writer has truly said: 'The first wealth
is health. No labour, pains, temperance, poverty, nor exercise that can
gain it must be grudged. For sickness is a cannibal which eats up all
the life and youth it can lay hold of, and absorbs its own sons and
daughters.'"
The descriptions here given enable us to realise how terrible and
pitiable a state of things had been reached, and the depths of filth,
and misery, and abomination into which the people had been allowed to
sink through the indifference of Parliament, the absence of any local
government, and the neglect or avarice of the "owners."
One hope there now was. Parliament had at last made laws to remedy
these evils, and local governing authorities had been created to
administer and enforce the laws.
In 1858 a Public Health Act was passed by Parliament, which put an end
to the existence of the Board of Health, and transferred to the Privy
Council the administration of the Diseases Prevention Act. And the
Privy Council was authorised to cause inquiry to be made in relation
to matters concerning the public health. In 1861 a medical department
of the Privy Council was formed which has in many ways been of immense
service to the cause of public health, and which, as time went on,
developed towards a true Ministry of Public Health.
All things considered, by the end of the first five years of the
working of the new local constitution conferred upon the metropolis,
a real beginning had been made in the sanitary evolution of the great
city. Some of the grossest evils had been attacked, and a start made in
lifting London out of the depths of the appalling slough of abominable
filth in which it had become submerged.
In some of the vitally important matters progress was material. The
improvement in the water supply was considerable, the main drainage
works had been started; the construction of many new sewers, the
abolition of great numbers of cesspools, and the better drainage of
houses, were all events of a decidedly satisfactory character.
And the death-rate of London as a whole showed a slight decrease--from
23·38 per 1,000 in 1851 to 23·18 in 1861. In some districts there was
an increase--in the majority, however, there was a decrease.
But most encouraging of all was the direct evidence afforded by
experience as to the effects of sanitary improvements.
Thus, in Whitechapel, the Medical Officer of Health, in reporting that
the cases of fever had diminished from 1,929 in 1856 to 190 in 1860,
said:--
"This diminution may be fairly attributed to the additions made to the
sewerage of the district, the improvements effected in the drainage of
2,172 houses, the abolition of 3,002 cesspools, the better paving of
many of the courts, the systematic inspection, &c., of houses where
fever occurred, the removal of 37,607 nuisances, and to the abolition
of several offensive trade nuisances."
And the Medical Officer of Health for Shoreditch wrote, in 1861:--
"That the diminished mortality and the lesser frequency of epidemic
diseases are really due in great measure to sanitary works and
inspection is proved by the diminution and even disappearance of
certain forms of sickness from streets, courts, and districts where
sewers have been constructed, ventilation provided, and other
improvements effected; whilst, on the other hand, the districts
still requiring those necessary reforms furnish far more than their
proportion of the epidemic sickness and mortality."
Philanthropic individuals were increasing their efforts for the
improvement of the people; and societies, working on a self-supporting
basis, were taking more active interest in the housing problem, and
erecting model lodging-houses and more healthy habitations.[80]
Public opinion was more interested than before in sanitary matters,
and it was thought that the working classes had also in some degree
awakened to the care of their own health.
"Altogether," wrote the Registrar General, in his report on the health
of London after the census figures of 1861 were known, "there is
abundant proof of that increased regard for human life that attends
civilisation."
FOOTNOTES:
[54] 18 and 19 Vic. cap. 120.
[55] 18 and 19 Vic. cap. 121.
[56] 18 and 19 Vic. cap. 122.
[57] Section 103 of Metropolis Local Management Act.
[58] There is in the library of the London County Council an almost
complete set of these annual reports inherited from the Metropolitan
Board of Works. Unless those sent to the Secretary of State, as
directed by the Act, have been preserved, there is no other collection
in existence.
[59] St. Giles'.
[60] Fulham.
[61] Rotherhithe.
[62] Hackney.
[63] Medical Officer of Health, 1856.
[64] "Lungs for London," _Household Words_, vol. i. p. 45, 1850.
[65] P.P. 1852-3, vol. lxxviii. p. 327.
[66] Clerkenwell, 1856.
[67] Fulham, 1857.
[68] Whitechapel, 1857.
[69] St. Giles', 1859.
[70] St. George the Martyr, 1859-60.
[71] Strand, 1859-60.
[72] Clerkenwell, 1860-1.
[73] 14 and 15 Vic. cap. 34.
[74] Shoreditch, 1859-60.
[75] St. Giles', 1857-8.
[76] St. Olave, Southwark, 1856.
[77] Whitechapel, 1857.
[78] Whitechapel.
[79] Population went up from 51,824 in 1851 to 60,278 in 1896.
[80] "The moral and social benefits conferred by these buildings has
been immeasurable," wrote one Medical Officer of Health (St. Pancras).
"They are institutions whose larger acceptance would save the lives
of hundreds, and reclaim the morals of thousands," wrote another.
CHAPTER III
1861-1870
THE Census of 1861 disposed of the various estimates of the population
of London, and of the death-rates in its various parishes, and gave
authoritatively the actual figures.
From 2,363,341 persons in 1851, the population had gone up to 2,808,494
in 1861--an increase not very far short of half a million; and the
number of inhabited houses had increased from 306,064 to 360,065.
The natural growth of the population, or in other words, the excess of
births over deaths, accounted for but part of this increase. The rest
was due to the great stream of immigrants into London, which, notable
previously, "continued to flow thither with unabated force."
The increase was not equally distributed. The population of the
central parts showed a decline. There the great economic forces
were most powerful, and under their influence the population of
the "City" had decreased by more than 15,000: that of Holborn and
St. Martin-in-the-Fields by nearly 2,000 each: that of St. James',
Westminster, by about 1,000, and two or three others slightly.
But elsewhere--east, north, west, south--the increases had been great,
and in some instances remarkable. Poplar had increased in the decade
by 32,000; Islington by 60,000; St. Pancras by 32,000; Paddington by
29,000. And on the south side of the river, Wandsworth had increased by
20,000; Newington and Camberwell by 17,000 each; and Lambeth by 23,000.
The rate of growth in the various wards or parts of the parishes
showed, both as regarded persons and houses, great differences, the
most rapid increases being in the parts nearest to the centre of London.
A most material factor in the sanitary evolution of any great city, and
especially so of London, is the introduction into its population of
fresh elements from the outside.
The returns collected by successive Census Commissioners gave
considerable information upon this point.
"London is the metropolis of the Empire," wrote the Commissioners
of 1861, "and thither the representatives of other nations, of the
Colonies, and of Scotland and Ireland resort; but it is chiefly the
field in which the populations of the several counties of England find
scope for their talents and their industry."
The majority of the inhabitants of London in 1861 were indigenous, for
1,701,177 were born within its limits; 1,062,812 were born elsewhere.
Of these 1,062,812, close on 36,000 were born in Scotland, 107,000
in Ireland, 19,000 in the Colonies, and 48,000 were foreigners.
The remainder--amounting to about 893,000--were born in the
extra-metropolitan counties of England and Wales.
"Proximity to the metropolis, and the absence of manufactures at home,
first drew the natives of these counties to London. The stream of
immigrants from the south-western counties was large: Cornwall, Devon,
Dorset, Somerset, and Wiltshire having sent 128,422 of their natives to
be enumerated in London."
Likewise the stream from Norfolk and Suffolk was large. But the great
bulk of the immigrants came from the counties immediately around London.
To put the figures in simple form--of every 1,000 inhabitants of
London, 606 were born in London, the remaining 394 were born elsewhere.
And the census provided also the means for ascertaining as correct a
death-rate as could be arrived at. In 1851 the death-rate was 23·38 per
1,000; in 1861 it was 23·18--not much of a decrease, but satisfactory
in showing that some of the evil powers of insanitation were stayed.
It is, however, always to be borne in mind that either the death-rate,
or the number of deaths, gives but an imperfect and incomplete picture
of the sanitary condition of a population. It tells but the tale of
those who have died of disease--it leaves uncounted and untold the
far greater number of those who have been either temporarily disabled
or maimed for life by disease. Estimates vary considerably as to
the number of persons who suffer from disease and recover; and the
proportion of recoveries to deaths varies in different diseases, some
diseases being so much more deadly than others. But the sick-rate
is always, and under all circumstances, very much greater than the
death-rate.
The mere taking of a census could have no visible or actual effect;
the routine of life and the action of the various economic and social
forces continued unchanged; but the information gained was of the
utmost value.
The figures and the facts recorded afforded startling demonstration of
the immensity of London, and of the growing gravity and complexity of
the great problems of London life.
London was huge before--appalling almost in size and population;
now it was shown to be huger than ever. Everything was on a more
enormous scale. The masses of population were far larger, and were
rapidly increasing; and with this increase everything concerning their
existence became more and more complicated, and every reform more
and more difficult. The removal of evils affecting their physical
and social being would be a heavier task, the supervision of their
conditions of life more onerous and exacting, and the provision of a
government to secure their well-being a graver problem than ever.
One of the great forces unceasingly at work, and one of the great
contributory causes to insanitation and to the maintenance of a high
death-rate was, undoubtedly, drink. It led to poverty and overcrowding,
it led to ill-health and greater susceptibility to disease; and the
evils acted and reacted upon each other indefinitely--a vicious circle
from which there was no escape, overcrowding leading to a craving for
drink, and drink resulting in poverty and therefore overcrowding with
its attendant evils and high mortality. Since the unfortunate moment
in 1830 when Parliament deemed it expedient "for the better supplying
the public with beer" to give greater facilities for the sale thereof,
and scattered broadcast throughout the nation the seed of unlimited
evil, facilities for drink not only of beer but of spirits have been
practically unlimited. Against this source of evil, which is often
mentioned in their reports, neither Medical Officers of Health nor
Vestries could contend, and had no power to contend. But all through
the history of the sanitary evolution of London this deep underlying
curse was present, acting as a perpetual clog upon sanitary and social
progress--a horrible, all-pervading and tremendous power for evil.
In the earlier years of this new decade of 1861-70 the central
government--the Metropolitan Board of Works--was demonstrating the
great utility of a central governing authority for London, and a task
was nearing accomplishment which was absolutely the first essential,
the very foundation of an improved state of the public health.
It was engaged in pressing vigorously forward the great system for the
sewerage and drainage of London designed for taking off the sewage and
refuse waters of a prospective population of three and a half million
persons, and the rainfall of a drainage area of 117 square miles. Until
those works were completed no great degree of sanitary improvement
could be expected.
In 1861 the Board reported that a portion thereof had been finished,
and as the work gradually progressed the Vestries were able to avail
themselves of the deeper outfalls afforded, and to undertake drainage
works in their several areas.
By 1865 the great task was virtually accomplished. Eighty-two miles of
main intercepting sewers had been constructed, and the sewage was being
conveyed away by them several miles distant from London.
Their completion enabled the Metropolitan Board to fill in the open
sewers, which had so long polluted the atmosphere, and been such a
fertile source of disease in the districts where they existed, and
took away from the Vestries any excuse for delay in carrying out the
construction and putting in order of the local sewers for which they
were responsible.
The central authority had thus brought into existence a gigantic system
of sewerage by which the river near London ceased to be the main sewer
of London, and the whole of the metropolis was relieved of many of the
most powerful causes of fever, cholera, and other destructive diseases.
It was a great work, admirably and expeditiously carried out, and
it cleared the way for other sanitary reforms which were impossible
without an effective general system of sewerage, yet which were
essential if a satisfactory condition of the public health were ever to
be attained.
The central body also proved its great utility by securing uniformity
in the sewerage and drainage works which fell to the duty of the local
authorities to carry out. All plans by the Vestries had to be submitted
to the Board so that the Board might see that they were consistent with
the main system.
Both main drainage and house drainage were thus steadily being extended
and improved, but in many places things were still outrageously bad.
Nor had the creation of fresh evils been effectually prevented, for
from Bromley came the complaint that several new estates were rapidly
being covered with small house property which drained into cesspools.
And the Medical Officer of Health for Fulham wrote (1866):--
"The active operations of your Board have fortunately relieved the
Fulham district to a large extent from that pregnant source of
mischief--want of drainage; still there are large tracts of building
land yet unprovided for, on much of which houses by dozens are being
squatted without any regard to this great essential by the builders,
save the horrid cesspool system. It is enough to have to counteract
the evils of past imprudence without perpetuating them by such wilful
recklessness...."
The supply of water to the inhabitants of London was of equal
importance to an efficient system of sewerage. The problem had by no
means been solved by "The Metropolis Water Act" of 1852, which had
enacted that within five years after the passing of the Act a constant
supply should be given by the companies. Unfortunately, the supply was
in the hands of various public companies over which the local governing
authorities had practically little or no control, and, like all
sanitary legislation of this period, the results were not commensurate
with the intentions of the Legislature.
An illustration of how insufficient the supply was, was detailed in a
report of the Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel in 1862:--
"A return has been made by the Inspector of 133 courts in the district.
"Of these--in 48 which contain 388 houses and have a population of
3,233 persons the water supply is by stand taps only, from which the
water flows daily (Sundays excepted) for a period varying from quarter
to half an hour.
"This intermittent supply is totally inadequate to the wants of the
people."
Parliament made an effort in 1862[81] to amend the law, and enacted
that where a house was without a proper supply of water the owner or
occupier might be required by the Vestry to obtain such supply, and if
such notice was not complied with, the Vestry might do the necessary
work and recover the expenses from the owner, and then require the
water companies to supply the water.
But the Act was of little practical value, and was made of less value
by the inaction of the local authorities.
A few extracts from reports of Medical Officers of Health show how
thoroughly unsatisfactory and disastrous to the health of the people
the existing condition of affairs was.
The Medical Officer of Health for Fulham wrote in 1864:--
"The powers at present given by Statutes for enforcing a supply of
water for domestic use are, within the Fulham district, all but
inoperative. The cry amongst the cottagers is still for water--water
without which all other sanitary appliances are at best abortive,
without which in ample and continuous flow no community can be
preserved in healthfulness. On this essential will depend the perfect
working of our deep and costly sewers, on this alone will hang success
in minor drainage matters. Water, that first and most important element
of health and cleanliness, exists in name alone in masses of our
cottage property here, and consequently neither purity of person nor of
dwelling can be ensured."
The Medical Officer of Health for St. Martin-in-the-Fields wrote in
1864 deploring that the new laws of the water companies did not provide
for water being supplied on Sunday. "It is to be lamented that people
should at any time have to go about begging water, and more especially
so on Sundays, the very day they most require it."
And the Medical Officer of Health for Westminster wrote (1864):--
"The water supply to many of the courts and alleys is very
unsatisfactory. No Sunday supply.
"It does seem a monstrous arrangement that for 52 days in the year the
public should be deprived of that which they pay for, but have no means
of substituting by anything else."
And to complete the hardships which the people suffered under in the
matter of water supply, if the house-owner did not pay the water rates
when called upon to do so, the water company might cut off the supply
of the people in the house. This was frequently done, and the Medical
Officer of Health for Whitechapel recorded how for four months--
"The inhabitants of Tuson's Court, Spitalfields, had been entirely
deprived of water in consequence of the water company refusing to
continue any longer the supply, as the landlord had not paid the water
rate."
The quality of the water, though improved by the change of intakes to
the part of the Thames above Teddington Lock, left very much to be
desired. It was no longer contaminated by the entire sewage of the
metropolis, but it was still by sewage poured into the river and its
tributaries by towns higher up--Oxford, Reading, Windsor, Chertsey,
Hampton, and others--and received, unchecked, the whole of the
pollution, solid and fluid, of the district constituting the watershed.
And this same water, after it had been so polluted, was abstracted from
the river, sand-filtered, and pumped into the metropolis for domestic
uses and distributed to the consumers.[82]
The housing of the people was the problem which, above all others,
was more and more forcing itself upon the attention of those whose
work brought them into actual contact with the conditions of life of
the great mass of the people who were in their charge; not merely the
construction of the houses or their situation, but the accommodation
afforded and the conditions of life therein.
"Our forefathers," wrote one of the Medical Officers of Health, "knew
nothing about the public health, and cared less. They added house to
house, and street to street, according to their own will and apparent
benefit, and so have left us this mingled heritage."
And there were streets and courts and alleys which were not fit for
human habitation, and which could never be made so; and thousands upon
thousands of houses where "nothing short of a hurricane would suffice
to displace and renew the air."
London had enough to suffer under from the state of the existing
houses, and an appalling task before her to remedy them, but not alone
was this enormous evil practically unattacked, but fresh sources of
evil were allowed to be created, and new houses were being erected
which would carry into the future the evils which efforts were now
being made to put an end to.
"A house may be built anywhere," wrote one of the Medical Officers of
Health in 1862, "and almost anyhow, provided all the rooms can be
lighted and ventilated from a street or alley adjoining. The object
of the builder is to save as much ground, materials, and expense as
possible. The result is not difficult to foresee...."
No regard, moreover, was had to the ground on which new houses were
being built, though that was all-important for a healthy dwelling.
"... Some of the new houses are built upon garden mould or old 'slop
shoots,'" wrote the Medical Officer of Health for Paddington in 1870-1;
"these thin and flimsy shells of lath and plaster truly merit the term
'slop buildings.' A dangerous moisture and miasma arises from houses
built upon such an unhealthy foundation."
How disastrous the results were to the inhabitants is pointed out by
several Medical Officers of Health.
The Medical Officer of Health for Mile-End-Old-Town wrote (1866):--
"... Many open places now built upon, or being built upon, have been
for years the receptacles for all kinds of animal and vegetable refuse,
and have become thoroughly impregnated with the products of their
decomposition.... The result to the health of the occupants is daily
realised by the excessive number of zymotic diseases and deaths which
occur in them."
The Medical Officer of Health for Limehouse wrote:--
"Ask about the general health and the houses. 'Never been well since
coming in, and the children always ailing; and my husband says he feels
more refreshed when he comes from his work than after he gets up in the
morning. And then everything spoils; meat put into a cupboard is musty
in a night. One can keep nothing.'
"These are all new houses."
And a few years later, referring to this same subject, he wrote:--
"A half mile off, a few years ago, there were some acres of gravel
pits. The gravel had gone for road-making, &c. The large pit was then
filled up on invitation of the owner, with the aid of the scavenger and
others, with all the slush and filth of a large circle of contributors.
When this fund of abominations became consolidated, it was built over
in the usual style. They were soon occupied by tenants and lodgers. Now
this site during the epidemic (of cholera) has been a great slaughter
field--the mortality was shocking."
And he added, "there are thousands of such houses built about London."
The Building Act of 1855 was very far from being an effective
prevention of such devices as these. It required a notice to be given
to the Vestry before any new building was commenced, and a plan to be
submitted for approval showing the proposed drainage and the levels
of the building; but this requirement appears to have been by no
means universally complied with, and some local authorities had great
difficulty in getting notices of new buildings commenced within the
district. And its restrictions were not sufficient to prevent the
speculative builder in places from raising his block of houses in the
fields with neither road or sewer for their accommodation, and with the
frequent result of fever-stricken tenants.
With the increasing knowledge of their districts gained by the numerous
Medical Officers of Health distributed over the whole metropolis, the
widespread prevalence of overcrowding in London, and the virulent
evils, physical, social, and moral, consequent thereon, come into
greater prominence and more vivid light than ever before.
Throughout the central parts of London the process of demolition of
houses of all sorts and sizes, inhabited by the well-to-do or by the
poorest, was continuing. The street improvements which were being
carried out in some places entailed extensive demolitions; whilst
the construction of railways and the erection of large stations
necessitated the destruction of hundreds of others, mostly those
inhabited by poorer persons. Thus, in the improvements in the Holborn
Valley, 348 houses, accommodating 1,044 families and 4,176 persons,
were taken down and not replaced. And in St. Pancras, and many other
districts, the dwellings of the poor were constantly being removed by
railway expansion.
The subject of the displacement of labourers in consequence of great
public works in the metropolis was brought before the House of Lords in
1861 by Lord Derby.[83]
"It affects," he said, "in the most vital manner the interests of a
large portion of the population who are utterly unable to protect
themselves against legislation, however unfavourably it may bear upon
them.
"In the metropolis and its suburbs sixty to seventy miles of new line
(railway) are proposed--a great portion of these passing through the
most crowded streets."
He described specially the parish of St. Bartholomew's, in Cripplegate,
with a population of about 5,000 inhabiting 500 houses.
"Throughout it, there are not ten families who occupy a house to
themselves, although the bulk of the houses contain only three rooms.
The incumbent tells me the aristocracy of his parish consists of
families who are able to indulge in the luxury of two rooms. But the
greater number have one room, and one only, and this is sometimes
divided between more than one family.
"Half of these houses are under notice for the railway."
And Lord Shaftesbury described a great demolition of houses which took
place a few years previously in the neighbourhood of Field Lane, City:
"1,000 houses were pulled down; 4,000 families, comprising 12,000
individuals, were turned out and driven into the surrounding tenements."
Lord Granville suggested, as a remedy, the provision of cheap trains
to carry artizans from healthy dwellings in the suburbs to the scene
of their work, and Lord Redesdale said he had introduced clauses into
the Railway Bill providing that the companies should run a cheap train
every day. But, as Lord Shaftesbury pointed out,[84] that would not be
sufficient, as--
"In some cases the men are under an engagement to their employers not
to live more than a certain distance from the warehouse," in order that
no time might be lost in executing orders.
The remedy, moreover, could only be very gradual in its operation, and
was quite inadequate to meet the existing emergency.
This demolition of houses had thus the two-fold result of at once
intensifying overcrowding in the remaining houses in the localities
affected, and in extending the area of overcrowding by causing a
migration to other localities, many of which were themselves rapidly
becoming overcrowded. And this, combined with the natural growth of the
population and the constant stream of immigration into London, resulted
in overcrowding on a far larger scale than had hitherto prevailed.
In Mile-End-Old-Town the West Ward had received in the decade 1851-61
an addition of 3,094 persons, whilst but 84 new houses had been
built--the South Ward 1,372 persons and 71 new houses built.
In Shoreditch, in 1863, "The tendency to overcrowding was increasing
year by year.
"Being mostly operatives, &c. ... accustomed to live near their places
of employment, they were naturally unwilling to travel further than
necessary, and so have accepted the readiest accommodation for their
families."
Of Whitechapel, the Medical Officer of Health wrote in 1865:--
"The evil of overcrowding is annually increasing, and if means be not
adopted to check it, the overcrowding will soon become of an alarming
extent....
"Houses formerly occupied by single families are let out in separate
tenements, and every room now contains a distinct family; and to
such an extent is this separate letting of rooms carried out, that
from information given me there is not a single street in the parish
of Whitechapel that is not more or less a nursery of pauperism in
consequence of this sub-division of tenements."
Away in the west, in Fulham, there had been a "flood of immigrants,"
chiefly of "the lower and labouring classes." The population had
increased 30 per cent., and the Medical Officer of Health wrote
(1865):--
"In watching the enormous accession of population to the Fulham
district, one cannot otherwise than observe the constant tendency to
overcrowding amongst the labouring people, whilst there seems every
possibility of this human tide increasing. The tremendous demolition of
the houses hitherto occupied by the working classes more immediately
in London itself has dislodged thousands of families, whilst no
systematised provision has been made for their reception."
In Westminster the Medical Officer of Health wrote in 1865:--
"The dwellings of the poor were never in a worse or more unsatisfactory
state than they are at present from the large number of houses that
have been already demolished. The poor are now driven into the most
wretched apartments, and which, in consequence of the increased
demand, can only be obtained at the most extravagant rates. They are
consequently compelled to herd together in one room, usually barely
sufficient for half of those it is now made to hold."
The south side of the river was much in the same plight as the north;
but there, there was more room for expansion.
The Medical Officer of Health for St. Saviour, Southwark, wrote in
1865:--
"The numerous improvements which continue to be made in and about the
heart of London have so increased the value of house property that
overcrowding has been almost inevitable.
"... In a vast number of instances families numbering four to seven
persons, ill or well, live, cook, wash, and sleep in rooms the
dimensions of which are not greater than is now demanded for each sick
person in the workhouse."
The Medical Officer of Health for St. George-the-Martyr, Southwark,
wrote:--
"In many of the districts of the metropolis between 60 and 70 per cent.
of the population are compelled to live in one small overcrowded room,
and in which every domestic operation has to be carried on; in it birth
and death takes place; there plays the infant, there lies the corpse;
it is lived in by day, and slept in by night."
In the necessity for house accommodation all sorts of places were being
pressed into use, and people driven into "places that are themselves
unfit for habitation, not having the elements of life and health about
them."
The Medical Officer of Health for Paddington described, in 1867, how
mews had been thus utilised:--
"In fact these back streets, originally built and intended for horses
and vehicles, and only those persons without encumbrances who are
engaged attending to them, have now become the resort of persons
with large families following all kinds of business--rag, bone,
and bottle stores, shops of various kinds, including beer-houses,
builders, carpenters, smiths, tailors, sweeps, find accommodation
here. Inhabiting the rooms above, too small, and unfitted with proper
domestic accommodation for a family, live a vast population of all
ages. These evils, rather than otherwise, are increasing."
Into such houses and such rooms the people were by stress of
circumstances compelled to go, and, as the Medical Officer of Health
for St. Giles' pointed out (1863):--
"A larger rent can be obtained for the same room if it is overcrowded
by a large family than if it be hired for only as many inmates as it
can properly receive. Hence the interests of landlords are constantly
on the one side, the health of the poor on the other...."
What this pressure upon accommodation produced may be gathered from a
few figures given by the Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel:--
Houses. Rooms. Inmates.
In Slater's Court, Whitechapel 10 31 170
In Marlborough Court 7 20 82
In Hunt Court 8 32 158
"In one room in Swan Court, having one window, seven persons slept--a
man and his wife, the daughter aged 24 in consumption lying in bed, and
four younger children; the cubic contents of the room were 910 = 130
cubic feet to each person.
"In Bell Court four persons occupied a room with 94 cubic feet each.
"In three rooms in Hayes Court, each 10 × 8 × 8 feet; each with only
one window opening into a narrow court; each occupied by eight persons
= 80 cubic feet to each person."
The Medical Officer of Health for St. Pancras (1865) described some of
the consequences of the conversion of a house, built originally for one
family, into one inhabited by several families:--
"... At present these families occupy usually a single room only in
a house of six or eight rooms adapted for only one family. The water
supply is inadequate, and at some distance from the upper rooms, and
there is but one closet, one dust bin, one coal cellar, and one wash
house for the whole. No one is responsible for the cleanly condition
of the closet, the water tank, the single staircase, the basement, the
areas, and the yard, or for emptying the dust bin."
One of the worst forms of overcrowding was when it resulted in what was
described as "indecent occupation." For instance, as reported (1861) by
the Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel:--
"In a room in Windmill Court there slept the mother, two adult
daughters, and two adult sons.
"In another room in the same court, a man and his wife, the daughter
aged 16, and three adult sons."
In 68 instances the rooms were "indecently occupied," that is to say,
adult brothers and sisters, or a father and daughter slept in the same
room.
And he wrote:--
"We may well inquire how such gross indecency and want of self-respect
can exist in this country, which is usually considered to be the
centre of civilisation, and where so much money is spent in imparting
religious and moral instruction to the people--yet such is the state in
which many of the inhabitants of this district live, as is ascertained
on a house-to-house visitation."
And in the following year he wrote:--
"On visiting the houses in low neighbourhoods it is by no means of
unfrequent occurrence to find an adult brother and sister, a father
and adult daughter, a mother and adult son, occupying the same bed.
What good citizenship can be expected to be manifested by a class in
whom the moral feeling is so low?"
The Medical Officer of Health for St. James', in his report (1862),
wrote:--
"This close association of several families in one house is productive
of immense evil; it prevents proper parental control; it encourages an
association of the sexes which leads directly to one of our greatest
social evils; and is one of the most fruitful causes of the spread and
fatality of zymotic diseases of childhood, and lays the foundation of
the scrofula and consumption which every year carry off a fifth of all
who die amongst us....
"It is almost impossible, amidst the filth and stench of dirty houses
and imperfect drains, that the working man's family should be able to
develop those moral and intellectual qualities which are, after all,
more worth to the community than any saving of rates."
The Medical Officer of Health for St. Martin-in-the-Fields, wrote
(1865):--
"Rents have become so heavy that few labouring men can afford more than
one room. Overcrowding in such rooms must increase, and with it the
fearful results of men, women, girls, and boys, all sleeping in the
same apartment. Neither religion nor morality can increase under the
existing circumstances of our poorer classes. It is almost returning
to the habits of our barbarous ancestors or the untutored savages of
Africa and Australia."
And the Medical Officer of Health for Holborn wrote:--
"Depend upon it, the moral and physical training of the people is
more influenced by lessons--whether in health and cleanliness, or in
religion and morality--that they are constantly receiving at their own
firesides than by any extraneous teachings.
"When a child has been allowed to grow up with a diseased body, and a
polluted mind, in a wretched room, without light, without cleanliness,
and without any notions of decency, our curative efforts, whether
medical, missionary, or reformatory, are as mere patchwork compared
with the great preventive precaution of keeping his home as pure, as
decent, and as wholesome, as possible."
No more powerful description can be given of the moral evils of
overcrowding than that of Dr. J. Simon in 1865:--
"Where 'overcrowding' exists in its sanitary sense, almost always it
exists even more perniciously in certain moral senses. In its higher
degrees it almost necessarily involves such negation of all delicacy,
such unclean confusion of bodies and bodily functions, such mutual
exposure of animal and sexual nakedness, as is rather bestial than
human.
"To be subject to these influences is a degradation which must become
deeper and deeper for those on whom it continues to work. To children
who are born under its curse, it must often be a very baptism into
infamy."[85]
Overcrowding was not confined to tenement-house rooms alone. The great
bulk of the working classes left their overcrowded abodes to do their
day's work in overcrowded factories, workshops, and workplaces; and
in very many such places men, women, and even children were crammed
together in rooms where healthy existence was impossible.
A great deal of information on this great branch of the sanitary
condition of the inhabitants of London is given in the Reports from
the Commissioners on Children's Employment, and in the very valuable
reports of special inquiries instituted by the Medical Department of
the Privy Council.
One of these inquiries related to Bakehouses, of which there were about
3,000 in the metropolis in 1862.[86]
As a rule the place in which the bread of London was made was what in
houses in general was the coal-hole and the front kitchen.
Very many bakehouses in London were stated to be in a shockingly
filthy state, arising from imperfect sewerage and bad ventilation and
neglect, and the bread must, during the process of fermentation, get
impregnated with the noxious gases.
The sleeping places were of the worst description,[87] some of the
men sleeping in the bakehouse itself. Many bakehouses were infested
with rats, beetles, cockroaches, and noxious smells. The smells from
the drains were very offensive--the air of the small bakehouses was
generally overloaded with foul gases from the drains, from the ovens,
and from the fermentations of the bread, and with the emanations
from the men's bodies; the air thus contaminated was necessarily
incorporated with the dough in the process of kneading.
Half of the bakehouses in London would, it was stated, require the
application to them of the Nuisances Removal Act.
Another inquiry related to the tailoring trade in the metropolis.[88]
The places in which work was done were reported as varying much in
their sanitary conditions, but almost universally were overcrowded and
ill-ventilated, and in a high degree unfavourable to health. Some were
underground, either in the basement of a house, or built like a large
kennel in a small enclosed yard, and were such that no domestic servant
would inhabit. In exceedingly few shops had there been any attempts
at ventilation. The ventilation through the windows was practically
inefficient, and instances were given of what had been found in sixteen
of the most important West-end shops. In one an average of 156 cubic
feet space was allowed to each operative, in another 150 cubic feet, in
another 112 cubic feet. Deficient ventilation, heat, and draughts, were
the causes of diseases.
A paper read by Dr. E. Symes Thompson (Assistant Physician to King's
College Hospital) at the Social Science Association Meeting in London,
1862, described the condition under which printers did their work.
"Printers often work sixteen to eighteen hours a day in a confined and
heated atmosphere; perhaps thirty men and as many gaslights in a low
room without ventilation or chimney, where air only enters when the
door is opened....
"Printing is only one of the many trades which entail the sacrifice of
every hygienic necessity, and the cause of the unhealthy looks of the
workpeople cannot fail to strike any observant person who may visit
their workshops. The rooms are mostly low, the windows fixed, and there
is often no chimney or other ventilation.
"This is the case in large and small factories as well as in
workshops--in the workroom of the milliner, the sempstress, or the
bookbinder.
"In many occupations, besides the evils alluded to, the air is
charged with foreign matters, which are drawn into the lungs at each
inspiration; _e.g._, the sorting and tearing up of dirty rags in
paper manufactories. The dust and fluff arising in flax, woollen, and
cotton factories, and in furworks, produce similar results--and brass
finishers."
And in another paper at the same meeting Mr. George Godwin detailed
his experiences as regarded the conditions under which milliners,
dressmakers, and other needlewomen worked.
"In an upper room in Oxford Street, not 10 feet square, I have seen a
dozen delicate young women closely shut up making artificial flowers;
and there when business is pressing they work from 8 in the morning
till 12 o'clock at night.
"Many of the workrooms of fashionable milliners are similarly
overcrowded, as are those where young girls are engaged in
book-stitching."
He gave as an example a house in Fleet Street.
"The staircase is confined and without ventilation--the atmosphere is
steaming and smells of glue.
"In the first room looked into, 40 young women and girls were sorting
and stitching books. There was a stove but no ventilation.... There
were more than 200 persons in that house, pent up without provision of
the first necessity of life--pure air. Poor creatures so placed are
being slowly slain.
"Other trades, such as cap and bonnet makers, trimmers, blond-joiners,
&c., to which I have looked with some little care, are forced in many
places to do just the same thing."